At its zenith in the 1960s and 70s, El Nacional was the foremost clearinghouse for our country’s rich, vibrant intellectual life. That was decades ago. The paper that just shut down was very different.

Hugo Chávez’s humor was always crass, but the guy had the charisma to sort of pull of a shtick. Under Nicolás Maduro, attempts at comedy have devolved into sheer cruelty — with mirth supplanted by insult.

During a mandatory broadcast this afternoon, Nicolás Maduro called himself a “free and independent president”, accused his usual enemies of plotting against him and said that the economy is going great, thank you very much.

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Edgar Sanabria is the President you never heard of. But his three month stint as care-taker in 1958 and 1959 did leave us one lasting legacy: National Park Status for El Ávila, the mountain flanking Caracas.

Want a peek at the future of how the government wants to control your financial life? Talk to your grandma, who’s now receiving her pension in phantasmagoric petros, with no obvious way to turn them back into bolivars.

Yes, having an income in dollars can go a long way. However, there are plenty of other factors at play in order to make it to the end of the month in this economy. Earning dollars, on its own, just won’t cut it anymore.

4,900 posts are up for election across Venezuela today. Well, “election.” Amid never-before-seen levels of voter disengagement, municipal council candidates struggle to get noticed. Hyperinflation, violence and the CNE killed the mood.

In 1998, Venezuela had no history of mass migration to speak of. Since then, we’ve witnessed three heaves of outflows: the latest one mass-based. How a peaceful country ended up shedding more migrants than Afghanistan.

The company that produces nearly all of Venezuela’s export earnings looks like a store the day after it’s been looted. How chavismo took an oil giant from world class to bankrupt-in-all-but-name in just two decades.

The first and most iconic of Chávez’ misiones, promised to create a world-class primary care network, not only failed at its immediate objective, it also syphoned billions from hospitals, mortally wounding them.

Venezuela had always been violent, but crime soared beginning in 1999. Waking up, late, to this reality, the government tried to fight crime with limitless violence. Two decades on, we’re the third most violent country on earth, and the second most murderous.

The story of the Chávez era is the story of dramatic events that changed the course of history again and again. From the 2002 Oil Strike to ¡Exprópiese! to the Death of Hugo Chávez, here are the twenty turning points that drove the Chávez era.

The plague is not made on a human scale, and so men always say that the plague is unreal, a bad dream that must pass. But it doesn’t always pass, and from one bad dream to the next, it’s the men who pass.

Venezuela will receive 9 million dollars from the UN’s CERF. Nicolás denies there’s a crisis, but the UN isn’t blind. Might have taken them a long time and that amount will only go a little way considering how many people are suffering, but hey, hungry Venezuelans will get some relief.

The basic infrastructure of State telecom company Cantv is in shambles as Reuters recently found out and of course, ordinary Venezuelans are the ones paying the price. Hugo Chávez’s home state of Barinas, knows first hand about the consequences of corruption, theft and disrepair caused by the revolution.

Pérez Jiménez, our last right-wing dictator, also disregarded the will of the people and the law of the land. He created that era’s Tibisay & Co., willing to rob Jóvito Villalba (and the nation) of his victory.

Machiques de Perijá is one of the most fertile areas in the country. Their plague? Livestock trafficking, smuggling, robberies and cold blooded murder in the hands of gangs acting like they’re in charge because, well, they are and nobody can stop them.

In Colombia, babies must be born from Colombian citizens or residents to obtain Colombian citizenship. What happens to babies with Venezuelan moms who face so many obstacles to have access to a Venezuelan birth certificate or a passport? Venezuelan babies without citizenship may become “an invisible generation” before the law.

Cubans used to say that all they needed to survive in Cuba was a lot of “FE,” meaning not faith, but “Familia en el Extranjero.” Venezuelans walk that trail today and there are plenty of ways you can help them... with crypto.